Update 1st November 2004

MD RESIGNS - David Maplestone has resigned as MD with effect from January 2005. Press release:

"David Maplestone has resigned from his position as Musical Director of Stourport-on-Severn Brass Band with effect from Christmas. The band would like to take the opportunity to thank David for the commitment he has shown us over his six years in charge and for the huge improvements he has helped us make in that time. During the last six years David has taken the band to contest victories at Rhyl, Wychavon and Leamington (twice) and gained promotion to the second section for 2002. David has since inspired the band to reach the National Finals twice in successive years, a feat not achieved by many other bands.

Speaking about his decision, David said: "I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Stourport, the hardest working band I have conducted but I feel the time is right for a change, for myself and for the band."

As a result, the band will be looking for a new conductor and would like to begin auditions after Pontins with a view to the successful applicant starting in January.

Please contact the band manager via email or phone for an audition.

Update 1st October 2004

NATIONAL FINALS.....AGAIN! - Harrogate came and went very quickly with band putting in a slightly nervy performance on a very hot stage. The band were placed 17th out of 17 bands (last place to everyone else). Pictures available here. Adjudications available here.

Update 15th June 2004

STILL HOMELESS - The band have tried various venues to rehearse, from church rooms to school classrooms, but nothing is ideal. Some have a very dead acoustic with no storage, whereas others have lots of storage but they are too "boomy" and the sound is either too loud or it reverberates on for too long.

After a very good concert in aid of the Alzheimer's Society on Saturday 12th June, the Stourport Civic Centre was suggested as a possibility to practice in, nice acoustic but no storage .....again! The Ramada Resort in Bewdley have told the band they can rehearse on Tuesdays in the old room (yippee), but it may only be temporary (sob). It seems to be an endless struggle to find somewhere, but the band are optimistic that something will turn up.

Update 14th May 2004

HOMELESS - The band have had to leave their band room and find pasture's new due to the Ramada Hotel requiring the room on practice nights. Various members of the band have made lots of phone calls and some of the committee have been visiting possible new venues to practise.
Thursday 13th saw us rehearsing at Bewdley Friends Quaker Meeting House. The venue had a tiny car park and the MD was last to arrive so had to be the first to leave as the band we all double/quadruple parked!! Tuesday 18th will see the band back at Stourport High School (their roots) and 2 other venues are planned at Wolverley High School (CD recording venue) and St. John's Church in Kidderminster in the following 2 practices. Lets hope that one of them is as acoustically dead as the old band room and that storage is available for the percussion and music library.

Update 23rd April 2004

STOURPORT ON THE BEEB! - The band were informed by Ramada that the practice would no longer be available on Tuesday & Thursday evenings from mid-May so rumblings were sent out that we needed to find a new room. BBC Midlands Today found out and decided they had a story that might help us.
The band were filmed for almost 3 hours playing Death or Glory over 10 times on a very wet Sunday (4th April) in various obscure places including: A bus stop, a field, a car park and........a phone box!! Kate (2nd Bari) and Dai (MD) were both interviewed while the band had a drink in the bar. The item was aired on BBC One on Tuesday 13th April during Midlands Today and lasted less than 3 minutes.
As a follow up, BBC Hereford & Worcester Radio phoned up Kate and interviewed her LIVE in the week following the show being broadcasted. The band have received a few offers of possible band rooms and they are currently being looked at. Lets hope we find one before May 13th (The first Thursday we are unable to use the current room).

STOURPORT ON CD! - The Band have recorded their first CD! The recording took place over the weekend 17th/18th April at Wolverley High School. The weekend was very eventful and included a power cut, lots of patience, a fair amount of hair pulling and head scratching.....and an ambulance!
The process was made fairly simple - 6 sessions of an hour and a half each over 2 days to record as much as possible (ideally 16 tracks). An initial complete run through was recorded and then as many little outtakes that were needed to cover up any "clips" and "clicks" that appeared in the run through. Neil & Andy from Absolute Recordings were extremely patient with the band & MD, and we look forward to hearing the results very soon. Pictures to follow shortly.

Update 31st March 2004

Congratulations to Simon who passed his Grade 8 Cornet with Merit recently. Simon plays Repiano cornet and I'm sure it must be time for him to put in a solo piece soon!!!

On a more serious note, Rob Clarke (1st Trombone) is resigning from the band from July 1st to go travelling round the world for a year with his better half. We wish them both all the best and hope you can sit down soon after all the jabs you have had! This leaves a gap from a trombone player..........anyone wishing to join should contact our new Band Manager Richard Snape via email.

Update 24th March 2004

The Midland Regional Championships were held at Burton-upon-Trent Town Hall on Saturday 13th March and the band had a fairly early draw - 7 out of 17. The band rehearsed at a Scout hut just south of Burton and were served various types of hot butties and drinks by the lovely people there afterwards (see pictures). The Band gave their best ever performance of Kaleidoscope and were placed 3rd. What a fantastic result! 3rd place two years running! And a National Finals invitation to Harrogate in September, a bit closer to home than Dundee last year so hopefully not as expensive to travel. Hotel bookings were soon made (thanks Helen), rehearsal room booked (thanks Dave) and coach negotiations are happening (thanks Snapey). Lets just hope we place better than 17th this year!! Thanks must go to David Berezan who joined the band on kit, and also to Kate Morgan who move from 2nd Baritone to timps/tuned percussion with only one weeks notice. Thank you both.

Update 25th February 2004

I really must update this more often!! We welcome David Berezan to the band to come and play percussion at the Regionals in Burton. David is from Canada, but now lives in the UK and teaches Drama at Evesham High School. Welcome David.

Engagements for 2004 have also been updated. Click here

Well, what a year 2003 was. After a successful summer of park bandstands and fetes it was off to Dundee. The band flew up to Edinburgh from East Midlands Airport at a ridiculously early time and then made for Perth (near Dundee). A sociable Saturday was had with a rehearsal in the afternoon and then to Sunday-Final Day!!! The band were drawn to play 2nd and gave a reasonable performance of Eric Ball's Sunset Rhapsody. The band found a local 'establishment' and started to pull apart their performance over a few quiet drinks, and then to the results! The adjudicator's didn't agree with the band's thoughts and placed the band 19th (out of 20!). Oh well, all that fundraising helped us to have a truly enjoyable weekend and thanks must go to all those who helped. The band did improve the following weekend by being place 3rd at the Wychavon Entertainment Festival.

Update 30th June 2003

It's been a while (nearly 3 years!!) since the website has been updated so I'm getting round to it now!!

The band were promoted to the 2nd Section in 2002 and in the past year the band have had two major successes. They won the Wychavon 2nd Section Entertainment Contest at Evesham High School and picked up a cheque for £1000 for their efforts. At the Midlands 2nd Section Regional Contest in Burton-on-Trent in March of this year the band came 3rd and qualified for the National Finals of Great Britain in Dundee. More recently the band have just finished performing 'Brassed Off' at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre which was very tiring for all involved but superb fun at the same time (pictures will be uploaded soon). Next.....Pershore Midsummer Brass on 5th July 2003.

Update 8th August 2000

Quick update showing some pictures at Pershore Midummer Brass on 1st July 2000. A picture from Ian Aulton from The Staffordshire Band (thanks Ian!) and several of us in The Abbey and The Marquee behind The Angel taken by a friend I met on the Internet (Ray Walton). Ray hadn't been to hear brass bands much, let alone a day like Pershore with many bands playing. He enjoyed it so much that he wants to come next year!:-)I have uploaded this page which you can link to here. When I manage to do the long awaited site restructuring I will make it more integrated.

Update 30th July 2000

Hi everyone!...Just to let you know that I (and the band) are still going strong.It's been a long time since I have done an update to the site :-(This is partly other work commitments but also the site really needs a good "spring clean" changing the links and pages around rather than updating a few pages here and there. It has got to a stage where pages have been tagged on and now really needs to be restructured. No promises when, but I'll try and get onto the case as soon as possible.Since the last update - just before we performed in the stage version of "Brassed Off" at Wolverhampton a lot has happened :1. A few players have left and a few joined - I need to update the players pages for this still.
This is the main reason for this minor update - as I've posted a vacancy notice on Nigel Horne's pages and potential players may come to the site. So I wanted to let them know I'm still here.

I have updated the Vacancy pages.2. In October 1999 we suddenly had to leave our bandroom at The Fountain pub near Kidderminster due to redevelopment. After a frantic search and some publicity in the local newspapers and on radio we finally were relieved to be able to move to a new home.

We now rehearse not far away at The Jarvis Hotel & Country Club between Kidderminster and Bewdley. A temporary link to the new location is here. I will update the current "Where we rehearse pages" as soon as I can. Hope to update the site soon!

Update 4th May 1999

There's now a new web counter on this page which will give me more statistics about visitors...not who..but which browser they access the site with and screen resolution plus lots of other statistics I've updated the Midlands Regional legaue Tables. I never managed to obtain the 1998 ones but have got the 1999 ones. There were some discrepancies from my results for the missing 1998 ones (and all the others I have seen in the magazines etc). However, the official tables must stand as the official ones and as such, I have amended the 1998 calculated results, changed the calculated 199 results for the official table and used the official table for the provisional start point for next year's regionals.

Update 20th April 1999

Link provided to the National Contesting Council pages. Just shows contacts and the 1999 regional results currently. Hopefully the League Tables will be added and archives of previous results, test pieces etc in the future

Update 7th April 1999

Want to hear the band play? I wanted to test putting audio onto a website, preferably the band<G> but we haven't got a CD of our music. However, David Bishop-Rowe has recorded a few pieces of us playing onto MiniDisc and put it on a CD - thanks Dave!:-)
So I've converted the recording to "Real Audio" and created a new page on the site called "Listen To Our Band" (similarity to the BBC Radio2 programme?<G>).
Have a listen and see what you think! Don't forget to make sure your browser options are set to play audio.
The recordings are not professional - no offence dave! - as they were done with a portable recorder and standard microphone. But it will test the method for the future when i hope we can have more excerpts of Stourport on the web!

Update 26th March 1999

The Latest Band News page has been updated.The Midland's Regional Qualifying Contest at Nottingham. After we were demoted to the 3rd Section at the 1996 contest we haven't exactly excelled ourselves with only middle table results. This year we weren't that confident of doing any better - BUT - we had a favourable draw, played as good as we could expect from rehearsals and were over the moon to gain 3rd place!Worcester Contest - Less said about this the better!New Musical Director - David Bishop-Rowe has now taken up the position of Resident Musical Director at Lydmet-Lydney and David Maplestone has joined us as MD from 26th March.Brassed Off Tour - This is now getting closer and the contract has been signed ready for the final run in to the performance week at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre during the week 24th - 29th May 1999. As this is a highlight for the band I've taken the details off of the latest news and created a specific set of pages containing the news on this, details of the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton and I hope to add more as we get closer to the evnt. Afterwards I will try and get some pictures and newspaper clippings to upload for everyone to see.Put a page in with a local map so you can see where we rehearse near Kidderminster. I hope to put up more pages with maps so that our non UK visitors can more easily see where we are in the UK.Updated the links page. A few additions for links to banding members all over the world.If you are a member of ICQ then there is a link page provided by Andy Wooler and Nigel Horne where you can put your details and see if other band people are on the Internet for an online chat. ICQ is free - you just have to download the software and then you can keep a contacts list of friends on the Internet - banding or otherwise - and see when they are online!Carol Wills from Yarraville - Footscray Band, Melbourne Australia has put up some pages for a "Rogues
Gallery" where you can see pictures of people that are members of the Brass band maillist - in case you would like to meet (or avoid them) if you see them at contests etc. Thanks Carol - great idea and looking good - apart from the Rogues there

Click here to look at archived news stuff